Homer Ends Spring with Title Celebration
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 15, 2019
EAST LANSING – After a postseason full of winning, the players on the Homer baseball team have become dogpile veterans.
So after the Trojans defeated Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett 4-0 on Saturday in the MHSAA Division 3 Final, a small game of “I’m not going to be on the bottom” broke out before the traditional baseball celebration commenced.
“The dogpiles get a little more intense, a little more vicious the more you keep winning,” Homer coach Scott Salow said. “Today, I’ll watch the video later, but I think it was pretty good. I think they’ve gotten smart after the last five or six dogpiles; they all kind of look around and wait. I’m the last one out of the dugout, so I’m not going in.”
Homer (33-3) scored four runs in the first inning at McLane Stadium and rode the arm of senior pitcher Zach Butters to its first Finals title since 2006, and third overall.
“We’ve been working to get here for a long time, this group of guys,” Butters said. “It’s overwhelming to finally get here and win this with my guys. It means a lot. I mean, look at all these people out here coming out to support us. We’re a small town, and it’s just a great feeling. It means the world.”
Butters, who also picked up the win in the Semifinal in a relief appearance, kept a potent Liggett off balance for the 6 1/3 innings he was on the mound. He scattered five hits and two walks while striking out six.
“We had a gameplan going into it to stay away,” Butters said. “We saw yesterday where they like to pull, they like to turn over on pitches, so we were just trying to stay away as much as we could and execute the gameplan. My offspeed was pretty good today, and I just had a great defense making plays behind me all day. I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys to go out and battle with.”
Liggett (24-10) knew coming in that would be Butters’ gameplan, but was out-executed.
“He threw his slider/curveball out of the zone, and we just kept swinging at it,” Liggett coach Dan Cimini said. “The gameplan was to not swing at that. If you look back, a lot of 2-1 sliders out of the zone we were swinging at. That’s 3-1, that changes everything. Give him credit for throwing good pitches, but our guys need to lay off that kind of stuff.”
Butters got some help from his defense, which didn’t commit an error and also got him out of the one jam he found himself in all day. With one out and runners on first and second in the sixth inning, Liggett senior Alec Azar hit what looked to be a base hit into left field. But junior leftfielder Dylan Warner made a diving catch and jumped up to double up the runner at second.
“It could have been a better catch, but I got a late read on it,” Warner said. “Then when I got up, I saw the kid halfway, I just threw it and it was right on the money.”
Butters enjoyed his view of the play from the mound.
“I knew it was going to be a close one – Dylan was out there, and he was running,” Butters said. “I was like, ‘Oh boy.’ Then he lays out like Superman, and he comes up with it. It was a great play.”
T.J. VanderKuyl closed out the game, getting the final two outs for the Trojans after Butters reached his pitch limit two batters into the seventh inning. VanderKuyl kept it relatively drama free, and the final out was a roller to Butters at short.
All of Homer’s offense, meanwhile, came in the first inning, highlighted by a two-run double from Kyle Compton and a two-run single from Wilson. The Trojans threatened again in the second, putting runners at the corners with two outs, but Cimini went to the bullpen and brought in senior Billy Kopicki, who ended the threat.
Kopicki was strong in relief, allowing just one hit and two walks while striking out two in 4 1/3 innings. Kopicki is part of a strong senior class that was part of three Final Four runs and helped the Knights win a title in 2016.
“They’ve been great,” Cimini said. “Alec Azar and Billy Kopicki and Logan King are going on to play college baseball. Obviously, Mickey Walkowiak was phenomenal this year at first base, and had great leadership. Kellen Banaszewski is going to try and walk-on at Grand Valley – he made one error all year in the infield. They’re going to be sorely missed, but they paved the way for these younger guys, and these guys know how to act. They were leaders. I’m looking forward to the new class, but I’m going to miss the old class.”
Drew Zelenak led Liggett with two hits, while Patrick Illitch had a double. Wilson led Homer with a pair of hits.
PHOTOS: (Top) Homer's Zach Butters (3) and Damaso LeBron enjoy a moment during the Division 3 championship game. (Middle) Dylan Warner closes in on a diving catch for the Trojans.
Cass Tech Hopes PSL City Championship Next Step in Emergence as Diamond Contender
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
May 30, 2025
DETROIT — Juan Torres said it was a completely different feeling walking the halls of Detroit Cass Tech last week.
A junior baseball player for the Technicians, Torres knows full well to what extent Cass Tech is a football school, especially since it won the Division 1 title in the fall and produces Division I college talent every year.
But after Cass Tech won the Detroit Public School League baseball city championship on May 19, there was plenty of pride and attention paid to what the school had achieved on the diamond.
“It’s pretty tough because we are a football school,” Torres said. “Being able to show up to school (the day after) and to say that we won something, it felt really good. We can compete. That was a really good feeling.”
For Cass Tech head coach Melvin Jackson, earning a 6-1 win over Detroit Western in the PSL final at Comerica Park was a moment he had waited for and built toward since taking over the program eight years ago.
Western had won the last 15 PSL championships and in general has been the gold standard for baseball in the league. But Cass Tech has been inching closer in recent years.
Last year, the Technicians beat out Western out for a PSL division title, but lost to the Cowboys in the playoff championship game.
Cass Tech wasn’t denied this year, with starting pitcher Kyle Terry pitching 5 2/3 innings and Jordan Spencer registering the last four outs to start a jubilant celebration.
The offense was keyed by Torres, who had three hits and three RBI.
“This year, I kind of felt like we were ready,” Jackson said. “They have been really hungry for this moment.”
While rivals, Jackson said the reason he wanted to defeat Western was because the Cowboys had been an inspiration and measuring stick for his program.
Jackson and Cass Tech hope topping Western for the PSL title can be a sign of continued growth for high school baseball in the city.
“You want to bring baseball back, and these are the things that will help bring baseball back to another level in the city,” he said.
Cass Tech and other programs in the city face challenges that many suburban schools do not. Cass Tech technically has a home field on Belle Isle, but just about every nonleague game is played away on someone else’s field.
Detroit Edison, the Division 3 runner-up three years ago and a semifinalist last year, is in a similar boat having to play most of its games on the road and conduct practices on the school’s turf football field.
“When you go out to some of those schools and you see those kinds of facilities, it makes you think, ‘What if?’” Jackson said.
But much like Edison, Cass Tech forges on and makes the best of it. Just like Western was an inspiration to get to the top of the PSL, what Edison has done is motivating the Technicians to make a deep run in the MHSAA Tournament.
“We want to build a program like theirs,” Torres said. “We want to build toward something where we can compete every year and be in those important games.”
Jackson insists that his team can achieve things this year beyond the PSL title.
Cass Tech could very well run into Western again today since they are in the same District, and Jackson feels winning that bracket could be a great springboard for his team.
“There’s more baseball to play,” he said. “If we can get past them, the sky is the limit. The kids I have right now, my seniors and my juniors, they are hungry.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTO Detroit Cass Tech’s baseball program takes a post-championship photo after winning the Detroit Public School League city title. (Photo courtesy of Cass Tech coach Melvin Jackson.)